Gone
by Taintless
Summary: If death took away everything that you once were, if everything that you did simple led to a coffin, then what was the point? What was the point of life at all? What was the point in all this fighting, all this pain and all this suffering? Why bother get


What was life?

She'd found herself wondering about this a lot. Not that she was a particularly philosophical person or anything, she was much more interested in her textbooks rather than the wishy-washy ideas that seemed to make up philosophy that seemed only vague at best.

The problem was that everyone seemed to keep dieing, and when she looked back on their lives and made her retrospective judgements she wasn't sure if any of it really mad sense to her. If all that a person had achieved in their lives that had seemed so important only moments ago were then simply washed away in a wave of blank staring and thin trickles of blood. Could one spell really snatch away all that had made a person? How could just one simple wand wave transform what had once been a laughing, crying, chatting, screaming person into a limp useless piece of carcass?

If death took away everything that you once were, if everything that you did simple led to a coffin, then what was the point? What was the point of life at all? What was the point in all this fighting, all this pain and all this suffering? Why bother get up out of bed every morning when you know that one morning you won't be able to? One morning, you will just be dead?

Cedric had just died. One moment, she'd been in the audience, watching he and Harry clutch and the next he was gone. Then he returned, attached to Harry, cold and gone…a mere shadow of his former self. Nothing. Gone. Never coming back. She would never see Cedric walking through the school halls again. Cedric would never smile or laugh or cry and watch Quiditch or kiss Cho ever again. Cedric was gone and no matter how hard Harry clutched on to his body or no matter how loudly Cedric's father cried, Cedric would never be able to come back.

So where did Cedric go? His body had remained behind, but where was his soul? Was he in Heaven, the heaven she, as a Muggleborn, had been taught? Wizards tended to take on a non-secular view on the matter, so had he just gone nowhere? Maybe he was just stuck in his body, stuck, paralysed, trapped in the ground?

Next Sirius had gone, even more quickly than the last. One minute he was standing there, duelling, full of life. The next, he was gone. Fallen through an arch and never to be seen again. And she didn't understand. Where was he? Was he in the same place as Cedric? Was he really gone?

But Dumbledore's death had been the final blow. Dumbledore was gone and she finally understood that the dead were really gone. They were on their own now. Dumbledore couldn't help them anymore….

_Death is only the next adventure, _he'd told them. But how could she really believe that? What proof did she really have to back that idea up at all? Perhaps that was the hope Dumbledore clutched on to as he watched so many people die through the years. But she could find no comforting in his words.

So, if that was death, then what was life? Why bother live at all? Why not just give in, stop struggling, leave yourself fall into that endless abyss of nothing? Why not cut your losses now, as you stand, and stop yourself from opening yourself up, making yourself more vulnerable, to more pain and more sorrow? Why not just lie on your couch and wait for such an inevitable time? Was there any point to it all at all?

She stood between her two friends now, Harry on her right, always on her right, with Ron covering her left. All had their wands raised. Nobody laughed. Nobody said a word. No goodbyes were shared, but they were there, between the three teenagers, forever present. This was it. There could be no backing out now. What had to be done would be done. Tonight. Whatever sacrifices had to be made would be made. There was to be no hesitations in doing what had to be done.

She didn't understand it. She didn't understand life at all. She didn't understand the choices she had to make, and she didn't understand the reason for so much hatred and suffering in the world. She didn't understand fully why she kept on fighting, bravely, ready, prepared, determined…

She just knew she would keep on living. She would fight for what she thought was right, she would kiss the one she loved, she would say what she felt needed to be said, and she would do what needed to be done. She would keep on living.

Because she didn't know what would happen to her when she finally met her demise. She only knew that for now she was alive… and that she would never give up


End file.
